JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Mass media have been condemned for encouraging young people to take dietary supplements (DS). Media literacy, which includes authors and audiences (AA), messages and meanings (MM), and representation and reality (RR) domains, is a new approach to teaching youth to make smarter health decisions. However, it is not clear which domains are the most important for media literacy education.

Objective:

To investigate the associations among individual factors, media literacy, and dietary supplement use.

Methods:

The survey instrument included demographic items, a dietary supplements media literacy scale (DSMLS), and DS use items (users or nonusers, types of DSs, current use of DS, and intention for future DS use). The DSMLS is an 11-item instrument designed to assess college students’ AA, MM, and RR media literacy in relation to DSs. A total of 467 Taiwanese college students participated in the study. Descriptive statistical analysis, logistic regression analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted.

Results:

A total of 72.4 % of participants reported using DSs, and 37.7% consumed three or more supplements. Moreover, the MM media literacy domain was associated with being a DS user (odds ratio 0.63, P=.002), current DS use (beta=-.10, P=.02) and intention for future DS use (beta=-.12, P=.011). Finally, perceived importance of health was positively related to current DS use (beta=.18, P=.001) and intention for future DS use (beta=.18, P=.001).

Conclusions:

This study showed that the majority of Taiwanese college students were DS users and used multiple types of supplements. Moreover, students with lower MM media literacy were more likely to be DS users, to take DSs more frequently, and to have higher intentions for future frequent DS use. Finally, those who placed utmost importance on health were more likely to take DSs frequently and have higher intentions for future frequent DS use.